It's Washington Capitals hockey, all day, all night, all the time . . . or when I get around to it

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Countdown to Opening Night by the Elements: Number 19

Less than three weeks to Opening Night, and Fearless is now
in the teens in the periodic table of the elements.Which Cap will he find to match to…

Potassium

Potassium is one of those elements you really do not want to
leave lying around in the open.Oh, it
looks harmless enough, a soft silver-white metal.But leave it out in air, and you are going to
have a world of problems.It is extremely
reactive with water (even water vapor in air), generating both extreme heat and
intense light.

It is really impressive on the ooh-ahh scale.In addition to its reactivity with water,
there is the demonstration most any high school chemistry student has seen –
potassium permanganate is placed in a bowl, and glycerin is added to it.After five or ten tense seconds, the mixture
will ignite with a bright purple-hued flame.One would get similarly violent results mixing potassium permanganate
with hydrogen peroxide (warning: DO NOT…REPEAT, DO NOT TRY ANY OF THIS AT HOME!
GO WATCH IT ON A YOUTUBE VIDEO)

It makes sense, in a cosmic sort of way.Potassium, you see, is created in a rather
violent manner in supernovas as a product of nuclear fusion.Here on Planet Earth, it has been in use in a
variety of forms dating back to the Roman Empire.Salts of potassium were known as such and
distinguished from salts of sodium (which resembles potassium chemically) as
far back as the early 18th century.However, it took another century for potassium as a metal to be
discovered.Sir Humphrey Davy (who we
just saw in our look at calcium) is credited with the discovery.

While potassium has some violent and intense reactivity
characteristics, its applications are rather
common – fertilizer, industrial cleaners, gunpowder, and a process called
“saponification (production of soaps from fats and lye, produced from
carbonates of potassium -- potash).” Of course, there is also potassium nitrate
or “salt peter,” a substance thought to induce impotence (pure legend).

It is, however, an essential nutrient.As potassium chloride it can serve as a
substitute for table salt.It is found
in baking powder and in food preservatives.It is critical to efficient brain and nerve function, in regulating
fluid and electrolyte balance in the body, and preventing muscle contraction,
for example.

Potassium… an element with a robust ooh-ahh factor, and has
its place in biological applications but one with less brilliant uses in the
physical world.It sounds like a
limited-use forward to can provide some life to a moribund team from time to
time with his “reactive” style of play, making life difficult for opponents in
a physical way.

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The Washington Capitals ended the 2016-2017 as one of 12 franchises in the NHL never to win a Stanley Cup. Of that group, only the St. Louis Blues (48 seasons), Buffalo Sabres (45 seasons), and Vancouver Canucks (45 seasons) have gone longer never having won a Cup than the Capitals (41 seasons). Six teams came into the league after the Capitals entered the league in 1974-1975 and have won Stanley Cups: Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils (1976-1977), Edmonton Oilers (1979-1980), Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (1979-1980), Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes (1979-1980), Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-1993), and the Anaheim Ducks (1993-1994).

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